Working with faith communities

Below I share a few thoughts from my experience of working
with faith communities.One of the most
challenging aspects of working with faith communities is that it makes you, in
a very explicit manner, consider your own beliefs and opinions.It is not just a matter of intellectual
knowledge or professional skill but you are forced to reflect on your own
fundamental convictions.I will
therefore first of all look at issues of personal awareness and personal
commitment before going on to look at issues of knowledge and community work
skills.

Personal awareness

What is my faith commitment?

There are, perhaps, three ways to answer this question

1.I have a clear
faith commitment.This may be religious
or, perhaps, something more secular such as Marxism or, as is very common
nowadays, a personal amalgam of different philosophies.My challenge now is to look for the resources
within my tradition(s) which will provide me with the means to work with people
with a commitment to a different religious tradition.

2.I am unsure what
my faith commitment is, or whether I have one at all.I would suggest that this is going to make it
difficult to work with people with a strong faith commitment.They tend to have more trust in people who
know what they believe and openly articulate it, providing this doesn't mean
disrespecting their faith.

3.I have no faith
commitment and distrust faith of any kind.This is, perhaps, the most problematic position as it tends to imply
that I have a rational attitude to life whilst religious people base their
lives on superstition.It is difficult
to see how this will not lead to a patronising way of working.

Religious people believe that rationality is a tool rather
than a basis for life, we all have fundamental beliefs in which we put our
faith and we use our rationality to work out the implications of these faith
commitments.

What has shaped my beliefs about faith and religion?

The above has perhaps raised some questions for you.What do I believe?Is religion rational or superstitious?It is worth reflecting on where my beliefs
about faith and religion have come from.

What was I brought up to believe in?

What has been my exposure to religion?

Has that exposure been balanced?

What are my preconceived ideas about the religions and faiths I encounter?

We will all, inevitably, bring preconceived ideas when we
encounter people of a particular religion.We have been made particularly aware in recent years of our preconceived
attitudes to Islam but we also need to reflect on our attitudes to other
religious traditions.I have
particularly noted how people have limited and prejudiced attitudes to black
Pentecostalism.This illustrates how
attitudes to religion and race can often be intimately related but we also need
to be aware of how, for instance, the comic stereotypes of vicars can give us a
false picture of the Church of England.

What resources do I have for working with people who have a different faith
commitment?

Some of these questions raise important personal issues
which I am arguing we need to address if we are to be effective in working with
faith communities.But, nonetheless, we
need to focus on our professional work with faith communities rather than our
own faith journey!

We should be able to identify what are the resources we have
to bring to working with faith communities.Obviously if we are from a particular faith community we often have an
advantage in understanding that community and being accepted by it.We may also be able to help them connect
their faith to the community work they are doing.But it is not necessary to share a faith in
order to work effectively with people and sometimes not being identified with a
particular strand within a religion can give us a helpful neutrality.

We should also be able to identify what our problems
are.Maybe we have particular
experiences which make it is difficult for us to respect a particular faith
tradition.Or maybe we just feel so
ignorant that we lack confidence.It is
important for us to be open with ourselves and, hopefully, with any supervisor
concerning what problems we are struggling with.

Knowledge base

What do I need to know?

Some knowledge of the religion we are working with is always
going to be necessary and useful but intellectual knowledge can be
overdone.What people actually believe
and do can often be very different from what is written in books and pronounced
by religious leaders!Many religious
people are more than happy to talk about their religion if you are genuinely
interested in it and it is this knowledge that is perhaps more important than
what is written in books.

To what extent do I understand the diversity and complexity of the faith
communities with which I work?

A common problem with people coming into a faith community
is the failure to appreciate the diversity within that community.In Hackney, for instance, where I work the
traditional churches still have a strong presence but it is pentecostal
churches who are stronger.Having
representatives from the Church of England and other traditional denominations
would not mean you are hearing the Christian voice in Hackney.

Sometimes identifying with one strand of a religion will
make it difficult for you to work with others from the same religion.It can be difficult to hold this tension with
understanding rather than an impatient attitude of superiority.

What will be the implications of the lack of knowledge that I have?

You will always lack full knowledge.This in itself is not a problem people are
expecting you to be open, respectful and reliable rather than the font of all
knowledge.In fact they are likely to be
suspicious of someone who parades their knowledge of the faith community of
which they are not a member.What is
important is to be aware of what your lack of knowledge means for your
practical work.When is it appropriate
for me to give my opinion on the issues for a particular community?And when is it better to confess
ignorance?When do I need to be aware of
treading carefully because I don't understand?When might it be helpful for me to challenge attitudes and
practices?Sometimes lack of knowledge
can mean we don't take action when it would be appropriate.

Identifying opportunities and problems

What is important to the people of faith which I am working?

Working with faith communities is not really different from
working with other communities.Their
needs and aspirations need to be understood, these need to be articulated and
solutions found together.The process is
the same as any other kind of community work.

Where do our values and opinions clash?

What is different is that values and beliefs are more
explicit in faith communities and they are held within a clearer
structure.There is therefore less
pragmatism and beliefs can at times rule out options which might otherwise seem
desirable -- many faith groups, for example, are uncomfortable about receiving
lottery funding.

Where will people not be able to go -- how much of a problem for me is
this?

It is probably fair to say that faith groups often adopt
more socially conservative positions than other faith groups.This is particularly evident over the issue
of homosexuality.In some groups an overt
homophobia is evident although it is also true that there are some groups committed
to gay liberation.Generally faith
groups will have a cautious approach to equality issues when they involve gay
and lesbian people.You will have to
think carefully about how you address this issue.

Considering the positives

Recent research has criticised the treatment of faith in the
training of social workers.In this
context faith only ever addressed as a problem -- e.g. in the negative
attitudes to homosexuality mentioned above.The positive impact of faith in empowering individuals and creating
community was never explored.

What religious faith very obviously does offer in our
largely secular society is a different perspective.It is less likely to be influenced by
fashionable policies and more likely just to carry on doing what it believes is
the right thing to do.This is often
facilitated by the fact that it has its own internal financial resources and is
less dependent on government funding.Sometimes this means that faith groups will act in ways which seem to
you brave, courageous and radical but at other times they will appear
reactionary and bigoted.This is the
tension that anyone working with faith communities must face -- it is a tension
which not only requires a high level of professional skill but also
considerable personal awareness and, if at all possible, a dash of wisdom!

Working with Churches in the East End

a
reflection on Social Action for Health seminar on Mental Health and Christian
Faith Feb 2010

The process is all based around trust and
this is the key skill for anyone working in this field – they must be able to
create and build on a trusting relationship with church leaders and church
members.Within this a three stage
process can be discerned:

Face
to Face Work.Emails, letters and the written word generally will not be
effective.Even telephone calls are of
limited (though important) use.The
first step is to create relationships through face to face meeting.This enables the worker to enter into
churches and establish relationships with church members as well as church
leaders.

Once the trusting relationship has been
established then the worker is able to Create
a Safe Space inside the church.Perhaps surprisingly these kind of safe spaces are not often created
within churches – there is a tendency for churches to expect particular
beliefs, language and actions from their members.An outside worker can create a safe space
where people can share their real experiences rather than merely saying what
they think they ought to say.This is
particularly so if the experience is in some way liminal e.g. an experience of
mental illness.Nonetheless if it is to
be a genuinely safe space it must use the religious language appropriate to the
church alongside the language of the experience.

This sharing within a safe space creates Stories.It is the creation of these stories that is
the major outcome of this kind of intervention.These stories enable people to give meaning to their experience.They also enable other people to hear and
understand, so promoting the creation of community.These stories can also be collected and
published in some manner so that they can challenge and influence policy.

So in summary: trust leads to
relationships.Relationships create the
possibility of fashioning safe spaces.Safe spaces allow the emergence of stories which generate wholeness in
the individual, community within the congregation and learning in the wider
society.